


O Brother, Where Art Thou?

by isthisrubble



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), James Bond - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Family Reunions, Gen, Mission Fic, Pre-Canon, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6010603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isthisrubble/pseuds/isthisrubble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hasn’t seen his brother in fifteen years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	O Brother, Where Art Thou?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skyfallat221b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyfallat221b/gifts).



> Happy birthday Christine! she’s the champion of the Daniel Craig!Barney Barton fancast, and I was writing this last week (another attempt to write a proper fic based on this idea) and thought “wait. hang on. can I finish it for her birthday?” the answer is “yes, just.” Set in the same universe as [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4361066/chapters/13040149) and therefore canon compliant, comics wise in only the vaguest of ways, and Spectre-wise, not at all.

Mission ID: 549736

Background: Sławomir Jaskolski controls the movement of 80% of the cocaine in Eastern Europe [see index 1]. According to the Ruduski files he is implicated in the 2003 Poznań Kaczka murders [see index 2]. There are no other sources for this claim. Most of his network is unknown.

Commencement date: January 16th, 2005.

Expected timeframe: One month, with option to reassign as long-term mission

Agent: Bond, James 006 084.

Supervising officer: Tanner, William 001 017

Instruction: Follow Jaskolski and observe who he interacts with. Any information will be useful. No contact with Jaskolski himself is to be made under any circumstances.

* * *

The party at the American embassy is, well, not particularly interesting. Because Jaskolski has genuine big business connections, everyone wants to curry favour. Bond takes plenty of mental notes, keeping track of who he shakes off and who he keeps talking to. Most of it is reasonably predictable and matches up with what he’s learnt so far about Jaskolski, which is, unfortunately, not much. Bond’s had a lot of trouble getting anywhere in the criminal arm of Jaskolski’s network, because he’s only been trying for two months, and two years appears to be how long it takes for anyone to get anywhere worth getting. He’s already reported this to Tanner, who agrees that a deep cover agent needs to take over. Bond is just waiting to conveniently disappear without completely blowing his cover. He flies out in two days.

Jaskolski actually spends most of the party flirting with anything with even a hint of breasts. Bond would be a hypocrite if he disapproved, usually, except that the girl Jaskolski seems to have trapped for the rest of the night is slim, blonde and beautiful, but, well, a _girl_ . She can’t be over twenty, and Jaskolski is _fifty-three_.

It’s more than a little disgusting. They knew Jaskolski had a thing for barely-legal girls, but actually seeing it first hand is another thing altogether. In any other situation, he might have intervened, but he’s on the job, and the job is no contact under any circumstances.

Actually... they’re moving around the room now, and he can see more of what the girl is doing, or seems to be doing – she’s leading them while letting him think he’s doing the leading, making sure Jaskolski keeps talking by acting like she’s hanging off his every word. Now that he’s paying attention, everything about what she’s doing looks practiced, calculated. He’s done that, a handful of times – it’s different with women, but he still knows what it looks like.

And – now wait a minute. Bond leaves his half-empty glass with a waiter and starts weaving his way through the crowd. The huge room they’re in opens up into the embassy’s walled garden, and the girl is leading Jaskolski outside. Chances are they’re just looking for some “alone time” and he’ll end up witnessing something he really doesn’t need to see, but if there’s a possibility she’s passing something _useful_ on to him, or tricking him into revealing something, Bond needs to hear it.

He slips into the trees, keeping to the shadows and near both the door and and wall, in case he needs to make a quick getaway. He can hear them talking, and damn, it’s just flirting. Jaskolski is trying to show off by doing it in French, but his accent is awful, worse than Bond’s Polish. The girl speaks better French than him and she must be excellent at pretending to be impressed. That giggle is the most off-putting thing he’s ever heard coming out of a woman’s mouth, but Jaskolski must like it, because it’s working.

The two subtle men in suits with bulges under their armpits that usually follow Jaskolski everywhere have retreated back inside, to find some caviar or a girl of their own. How convenient.

What happens next happens very quickly.

The girl’s hand has disappeared inside Jaskolski’s jacket. ‘Slavko, what’s this?’ she says coquettishly, removing his gun from its holster. Then she pistol-whips him across the face and knocks his legs out from under him.

‘You should be more careful about the company you keep,’ the girl says, and there’s no trace of simpering in her voice now. ‘You were almost getting away with it, hiding your connection to Gorman – and don’t bother threatening me,’ she smiles like she could eat him whole, ‘I am Чёрная вдова. I can hurt you a lot more than you can hurt me.’

Чёрная вдова. The Black Widow. God almighty. Bond can feel his hair standing on end. The last survivor of the Red Room is a legend in their line of business. MI6 would love to get their hands on her. Who the hell is she working for now?

Jaskolski obviously knows who she is. He sounds terrified. ‘What do you want? I can pay, if you –’

‘It’s not me you should be worried about, Sławomir.’

‘But –’

‘No.’

And then Jaskolski jerks, hard, and collapses forward. The Black Widow steps smartly out of the way of the falling body, and Bond gets a clear view of what killed him.

... an _arrow?_

~~_Clint?_ ~~

Someone drops down from a tree on the other side of the garden, and Bond takes a step further into the shadows. They’re carrying a bow (a recurve, some half remembered voice supplies), and they – probably he, actually – have a quick conference with the Black Widow. She wipes Jaskolski’s gun down before replacing it, while the archer twists the arrow free and tucks it back into his quiver. They both then vanish over the garden wall about three feet from Bond’s nose.

Clint used to reuse his arrows like that.

_Shit._

No. Clint can’t be here, Clint’s in America, doing – whatever ex-carnies with dangerous enemies do. Or maybe he did join the Army, but that still wouldn’t explain –

He needs to follow them. Tanner would kill him if he let the Black Widow go without seeing who she’s reporting to, and if it _is_ Clint, and he doesn’t at least talk to him, he’ll never forgive himself. It’s been too long.

Bond goes over the wall.

* * *

He follows them for nearly a whole hour. They must know they’re being followed, which is probably why they’re sticking to busy streets. Bond isn’t going to confront them while there are other people around, because who knows how Clint – and it _is_ Clint, because he spotted his face in the reflection in a shop window – will react, and Bond really doesn’t want to get shot in front of some innocent civilians.

It’s been fifteen years since they last spoke. They’d fought, because that’s all they seemed to do in their last year with Carson’s, and then they’d gone out with Duquesne and Chisholm to rob a bank and Bond – Barney then – had ended up arrested. Clint had been the only one of them to escape, and they haven’t seen each other since.

He’d worried, for a while, that Clint might be dead. Duquesne and Chisholm would have been out of prison a few years after Barney had escaped, and they were both cutthroat bastards who wouldn’t have hesitated to hunt Clint down if they thought he was in some way responsible for their capture.

But instincts are instincts, and he’s learnt over the years that his are excellent. It’s what makes him so good at his job. And his instincts had told him that Clint was smart, and could look after himself. He might not be fine, but he’d survive. And, obviously, he had.

They’ve made their way into a residential area now, where the buildings are only a few stories high. To get them off the main street Barney has to take a risk – let them think they’ve lost him, and maybe they’ll slip into an alley and he can stop them.

He means to climb the nearest fire escape and follow them along the roof, but it takes him a while to find one, because Polish building authorities obviously don’t care much for fire safety. Once he does, though, it works. He only has to jump one alleyway – Clint and the Black Widow turn down the next one.

There isn’t a staircase in this one, but, it’s not too high, and he knows how to land. So he just drops down in front of them and hopes for the best.

Of course, because he’s just appeared out of nowhere in front of the Black Widow and the only man who knows who he actually is, Barney finds himself in a situation he hasn’t experienced in years – there’s an arrow pointed squarely between his eyes.

‘Watch where you’re pointing that thing,’ he says, because he might as well continue digging this particular hole. Clint doesn’t actually look angry, just surprised, so he’s probably safe. ‘You might take someone’s eye out.’

‘Nice accent. You didn’t pick that up in Estill.’

So he kept up with the trial. Barney shrugs and switches back to his old Midwestern accent. ‘I’ve been around.’ The English accent comes easier, now, anyway, but it wouldn’t be right to keep it up.

The Black Widow is looking between them the narrowed eyes. Barney can’t tell how armed she is, and he’s probably too close to her, if she decides to attack. He’s heard all the stories. But Clint is closer than he is, and it’s a chance he has to take.

She cocks an eyebrow. ‘Who’s this?’

Clint takes two deep breaths, and then removes the arrow from his bow. ‘Nat, this is my brother, Barney.’

_Nat?_

‘Ah,’ she says, and looks at him again. He can’t tell what she’s thinking, it’s unnerving. But then she does something with her face that could be considered a smile. ‘So. Do you boys want a bit of privacy?’

Barney stares at Clint. Is he alone in wanting to bury the hatchet? If he blows his cover to Clint, is he going to get back to London and find assassins hiding in his bedroom courtesy of whoever Clint’s current employer is?

Clint breaks first. He says to the Black Widow, ‘are you going to run off on me if I leave you alone for more than five minutes?’ She gives him a look that clearly means _oh, please_ . Clint sticks his tongue out at her, and Barney stares like an idiot, because _what the fuck?_

‘How long d’you think we have before Coulson starts looking for us?’

She looks at Clint’s watch. ‘I’d say another half an hour, maybe. I can stall him if you like?’ she gives Barney an appraising look. He’s definitely being judged.

Clint looks relieved. ‘Yes please.’

‘Who’s Coulson?’ Why is his little brother’s life so much more complicated than his own?

‘S.H.I.E.L.D. handler,’ says Clint, as if that’s all the explanation necessary, and of course S.H.I.E.L.D. would pick up Clint, they love weird shit, and an assassin (because that’s what Clint must be, now) who uses a bow and arrow is _very_ weird shit. That they’ve apparently picked up the Black Widow is more surprising, because almost every intelligence agency in the world has been hunting for her for years. What on earth did they promised her?

The Black Widow gives Barney a sunny smile that is definitely fake, and then, to his surprise, she kisses Clint on the cheek before striding away.

‘Come on,’ Barney says to his brother, ‘there’s got to be a bar around here somewhere.’ They’ve got a lot of catching up to do.


End file.
